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Book Reviews and Writing Tips

Sunday, March 6, 2016

We lost another author and a good one, Pat Conroy. He was the author of the Prince of Tides and other books that were made into movies. I’m sure some of you saw some of his films, The Great Santini and Conrack,or perhaps read his books.
The movie for Conrack was
titled TheWater is Wide and was about teaching poor children on the isolated DaufiskieIsland, not far from the resort of Hilton
Head where the rich lived. Mr. Conroy
won a National Endowment for the Arts award for this book in 1972.

The movie, Prince of
Tides, also won him an Academy Award nomination in 1991.

Conroy lived many places during his life, but called South Carolina home
where he was born on October 26, 1945, the oldest of seven children. The family moved extensively during his
childhood because his dad was an aviator in the military. He flew fighter planes and was very hard on
Pat while he was growing up. He made him
attend the Citadel, which was the last thing he wanted to do, but he avoided
the draft and wrote a blog at that time about being an anti-war activist. He saw eight of his Citadel friends killed in
the Vietnam War. He said “they walked
off the stage and directly into the Vietnam War.”

Pat Conroy’s memoir, The
Death of Santini, reflects on the struggles between him and his father. After the movie, The Great Santini, came out his father claimed responsibility for
boosting the career of Robert Duvall, the main character. Duvall had already starred in the “Godfather”
movies so this wasn’t entirely true, but gives one a sense of what a
controlling man his father was.

Later the book did help to achieve peace between father and
son.

The author was married three times and leaves behind two
daughters. He battled a number of health
problems including diabetes, high blood pressure and a failing liver. During his life, he suffered from depression, divorce, back
surgery and the suicide of a younger brother.
But he succumbed to pancreatic cancer on Friday, March 4 2016. He will be missed.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

It’s Read Across America day and also the birthday of Dr.
Seuss, children’s writer and illustrator.

It’s nice to have a day devoted to reading, but we should
all read something everyday. You’re
never too old to read, whether it’s for fun or research. I’m thankful I learned to read because there
are many people in the world who’ve never had the chance to learn to read, or
to write.

Dr Seuss left us with many great quotes that are good for
all ages.Below are some of my
favorites.

NaNoWriMo 2012

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I may chat about my books, what I'm writing or reading, or just general thoughts about writing and publishing. Comments are welcome, if anyone wants to interact with me. I'd like to hear about your writing and publishing experiences.